1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a motion detecting device for generating a motion vector, applicable to video encoding standards using motion compensation such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.
2. Description of the Background Art
Among conventional motion (vector) detecting devices for determining search ranges is an optimum motion vector search section in a video encoding device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-252571 (1999).
This optimum motion vector search section includes a search range determining part and a predicted motion vector peripheral search part. The search range determining part obtains the size of search range based on an allowable calculation amount given by an external control part. The predicted motion vector peripheral search part determines the shape of search region based on the distribution of motion vectors already obtained, and the size of search range as the size determined by the search range determining part.
In a conventional motion detecting device, the size of search region (search range) varies according to an allowable calculation amount, so that the search range is determined as having such a size that prevents the device from sufficiently exerting the processing capability. This is one of factors that disadvantageously prevent effective generation of a motion vector.